Thursday, January 06, 2011

The Subscription Is Over, Long Live The Subscription!

I am the sentimental type. If you need proof you only need to look at a phone conversation I had yesterday.

I called WH Smiths to cancel my subscription to Power Slam magazine.

Sure, it is only a magazine subscription but it was a long-running one.

I first bought the magazine in the summer of 1994 when issue one was published. Owen Hart had just won the King of the Ring tournament and it was a time when the Internet was in its early stages.

Power Slam was my gateway to the underground subculture of wrestling tape traders and fanzines. I didn't know anything other than the mainstream publications were in circulation.

The magazine became must read information each month. I would finish off my Friday paper round, hop on a bus and get into town before the shops shut just so I could get it on the day it was in.

And then there were days when I would get there and it hadn't arrived yet.

I would be gutted.

But I would be there first thing on Saturday morning.

I remember this one time I was in there and two people went out back looking for me. The one woman said it hadn't arrived and then I started turning to go out when the second assistant came running from the back with one of those tubes you see posters being delivered in.

'It might be in here.'

And then out it came.

I can recall that cover, too. Road Warrior Hawk and Kensuke Sasaki - The Hell Raisers.

I bought 198 issues and will never sell the collection on regardless of how much I can get for them. I've seen them go for hundreds on eBay but I am not even tempted to let go of them.

And why am I cancelling my subscription?

Well, the magazine has now started taking orders for delivery via their own website. It's £27 a year (saving of a little over ten pounds from regular stockists) and, barring bad weather and postal strikes, it should be here before it makes it to the shops.

My WH Smith subscription may have ended but my Power Slam subscription hasn't!

For those reading this that hasn't read Power Slam, I suggest you give it a go. The writers and photographers do wrestling fans a good service.

I doubt I would still be a fan of professional wrestling had I not learned what I have done from reading it.